T-Minus one week...

It's amazing to me that my weeks seem to blow by so fast, even with me not working. I feel like I've got a gazillion things going on every week, and yet, don't have a job. Wonder how overwhelmed I'd be feeling right about now if I DID have a job.

One week until our first game in baseball, and I'm now officially worried about the season. I have a handful of kids who absolutely will not get touched if they can throw strikes. Two kids who throw so hard that only the best hitters on each team even have a shot, and two kids who throw balls with so much movement on them that it looks like watching old footage of Greg Maddux. Unfortunately, because no one is going to be hitting them, they'll be forced to throw at least three strikes to each batter, and that seems like it is going to be an issue. I've never coached a pitching staff that was this wild, and I have a feeling we're in for a long season. NOTHING in baseball is worse than watching batter after batter draw a walk. Ugh.

Mixed bag in poker last week. Cashed for the 8th week in a row at my house, but then completely bombed at AIPCO. Couldn't get anything going there all night, and was rarely over my starting stack. Also a mixed bag at the final table. Only two of my Tuesday night crew made the final table, but we did end up with those two taking 1st and 3rd. Still, overall it was a rather weak showing for myself and my crew.

Saw an interesting story on "hyper awareness", and want to look into it. It is something that can be trained, and I think it would help my poker game immensely.

Had a great time at a Persian New Year/Spring Equinox party this weekend. I made a bunch of Persian themed cheesecakes for it, and some of them turned out really well. I think the almond cheesecake that I made is the best cheesecake I've ever made. Four different almond forms in it. Fresh almonds, almond paste, almond extract and Amaretto. Was very, very yummy. Also did a rosewater one that was knock your socks off good. The other 6 were good, not spectacular.

Breaking Bad season three started this past weekend. If you haven't been watching it, you should be. I'll be blogging later this week about a topic that I got from the show, but it is really just amazing writing. And Bryan Cranston can portray the widest range of emotion in one scene that I've ever seen from anyone. The "holy crap" moment near the end of season two is probably the only scene in history to win someone an Emmy when he said almost no dialogue.

Have the first of our sub-satellites to our WSOP tournament coming up this weekend. I'm hoping to win, and then sell my seat, which would give me a nice chunk of money. I would love to play in our $1K tourney again, but I don't see much of a point, since I probably couldn't go down to Vegas for the WSOP this year anyway.

Well, assuming that the TSA ever gets off their ass and moves me on to the next step in the process. Damn, even after clearing up the computer snafu on their end last week, still no movement. I'll put in another call to my mom's friend to hopefully kick someone in the ass yet AGAIN. Ah, don't you just love government bureaucracy.

Speaking of which, yes, I'm very glad that healthcare reform passed. I'm with Dennis Kucinich on this one, it doesn't go NEARLY far enough, but at least it is a start. I also heard a great line as a rebuttal to the people that are outraged, OUTRAGED at this SOCIALIZED health care: We already have socialized police, fire and education, and no one is complaining about that. So then one of my particularly dim acquaintances comes back with "Yeah, but those are UNIVERSAL services, available to everyone, and this health care won't be." Yes, I know folks. These people not only vote, but they breed. Suffice it to say that I tried to point out the fact that you can't bitch about universal health care being socialist policy, and then when confronted with other socialized government programs, defend them as being universal. It was, unfortunately rather like trying to convince my old college neighbor that you couldn't solve the financial crisis by printing more money. No matter how much you tried to explain inflation and devaluation to her, she just kept saying "But they COULD!" Stupid is as stupid does, Forrest.

I am one of the 40% of the country who quit caring about March Madness as soon as Faroukistanisdaynidad made his 83rd three pointer of the game against Kansas. Geez, guys, he's the only person on the team that knows how to shoot, do you think maybe you want to cover him? It's not like he's Steve Kerr, he doesn't have Jordan kicking it out to him. Oh well, good job, Northern Iowa, you just sank the bracket of almost half the country. Bitter, table for one...

I really hope we're not getting all this good weather right up until baseball season starts, and then have our first 10 games rained out.

Okay, I think that's about all of my news for the week. Wish me luck for tomorrow night when I go for 9 cashes in a row here.

Thank you all for being a part of my life.